


recalculating

by thir13enth



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 20:13:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14528292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thir13enth/pseuds/thir13enth
Summary: be careful, Lotor. she can turn on you at any time.





	recalculating

**Author's Note:**

> I just feel like there’s a lot about how Allura/Voltron shouldn’t trust Lotor but I’m having need for the other side of that. A drabble, if you will. (And yes, consider me a sucker for this ship.)

Be careful, Lotor. She can turn on you at any time.

Or at least, that’s what he tries to tell himself.

Lotor is good at games. He anticipates every move, counter move, and then the counter move to that. Under the wing of a broken royal family led by a single-minded father and a manipulative witch, he’s more than adept at maximizing what little he’s given, forming armies out of strangers, and being completely unfazed by whatever complications come up along the way.

There is one thing he doesn’t expect, however — and that, to his dismay, is something as primordial and mundane as falling in love.

Not just a stumble or a trip. He fell hard and fast like the gravitational pull of a black hole, and so unmitigated and deep that even as he is digging himself out of the emotions and immersing himself in rationalizations, he finds himself already buried in stars.

And yet, as foreign as love feels — the flutter in his chest when she calls his name, his immediate and unrehearsed response to her questions, the chills surfacing over his skin when she accidentally brushes him with the back of her hand — it feels a little like he’s found himself.

She’s everything he’s always wanted to discover about himself. All his life, he was convinced the only way to learn about his ancestry was by searching deep in space for remnants of whatever history was left, but unbeknownst to him, the answers were right here, just across war frontlines.

He imagines a time when there isn’t a fight for the universe and that he doesn’t crown the pride of future Galrans. When he sees her, talks with her, laughs with her, he almost forgets there is any conflict at all. He can pretend this is ten thousand years back and that he’s discovering his heritage through her. He wants to know everything about her; however much he learns from her, he learns about himself. She embodies the side of his identity he was told to shun, and having lived life as only half a Galran, the way she completes his other half makes him feel whole.

As much as she exhilarates him, he is careful, as painstakingly careful as he can be. He knows his emotions are dragging him into an unknown he never planned for, and he knows that at this point, she can just as easily tip him over as he could her. There’s a crumbling fulcrum balancing their fates, and if either of them takes a step back or forward without the other, this brief equilibrium between them will fall to pieces.

He wonders if she’s just playing him — but thinking of that just fills him with rage and unrequited feelings, so he chooses to focus all the signs that she feels all the same for him. The way she smiles at him, bright magenta marks glowing under her eyes. The way she tucks her hair behind her pointed ear when he approaches her. The way she pauses and hesitates before tapping him on the shoulder and inviting him to join the rest of them for dinner.

Time spent with her never feels like it passes faster, yet those brief moments when she leans in close… those moments play in his head like an eternity. He tries to rationalize whether he should close the distance between their lips, whether she would welcome the opening of possibility, but she is someone he has never been able to predict and if he were honest with himself, he wouldn’t know what to do whichever way she took it.

The only way he knows how to cope with new situations is by calculating moves and countermoves — but if she kisses him back, is it a countermove?

And if so, then what?

He still doesn’t know the answer.

**Author's Note:**

> y'all know where to find me:  
> tumblr @ahumanintraining  
> twitter @napsbeforesleep


End file.
